You need DD Form 2258, and this page gives you the blank plus the steps for handling it. Start with what the form does: Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions. Its official title is D D Form 22 58, Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions, January 19 82..
Then look at the edition date: not stated, publisher status not stated. After that, ask whether the form covers your situation. It almost certainly does regardless of your branch — DD forms run Department-wide rather than through a single service.
Once you know the form fits, find out when you file it. not stated sets the requirement, and not stated maintains the form itself. Your own command or agency adds local timing on top of that, so ask your administrative office if the deadline matters to you.
Before you download, pick your approach — editable file or printed page. What follows covers the formats first, then the entries, then what you do afterward.
Start at the header. Complete your identification before anything else, then work through the main entries, then finish at the certification. Skipping around causes contradictions between the top of the form and the bottom.
Before your first entry, look at the corner of the page and compare the printed date with not stated. If they do not match, stop and download again. Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
Fill every box as you come to it. If an item does not apply, enter N/A — an empty field looks like an oversight, and the form comes back to you. Watch the date fields especially: use the format the form specifies, not your habitual one.
Stop at the Privacy Act Statement and read it through. You will find the authority for the collection, the principal purpose, the routine uses, and whether disclosure is voluntary or mandatory. Read it now, while you still have the choice of what to disclose.
Sign last, and sign properly. On paper that means ink in the signature block. Electronically it means a digital signature, usually applied with your Common Access Card in a reader that supports it. Typing your name into the field does not sign anything. Then add the date beside your signature — an unsigned or undated form is the most common reason one comes back.
Run a final pass over the form. The errors that send it back are the same ones every time: old edition, gaps in required fields, unreadable handwriting on a scan, non-conforming dates, no signature or no date.
Look up an unclear item on the form face before anywhere else, then in not stated. Should the two texts conflict, the directive is the one you follow.
Download the form
Step one is picking the format. You have PDF to choose from, across 1 pages, with approximately 24 fields to complete.
You will not be charged for any of these; the whole set is free. Before you start entering data, save the file to your computer and open it there. Fields behave far more reliably in a desktop reader than in a browser preview.
What the form asks for
- D D Form 22 58, Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions, January 19 82
- Printed name: last, first, middle initial.
- Receptacle number.
- Status: Press space bar to mark X if status is A D V A S G.
- Mark X if status is T D Y.
- Mark X if status is on leave.
- Mark X if status is hospital
- Effective date from which to forward or hold mail: year, month, day.
- Mark X if status is confined.
- Mark X if status is AWOL
- Effective date to which to hold or forward mail: Year, month, day.
- Mark X if all mail is to be forwarded.
- Mark X if all mail is to be held.
- Indicate which items are to be forwarded only: Mark X if letters.
- Mark X if paychecks are to be forwarded.
- Mark X if parcels are to be forwarded.
- Mark X if newspapers and magazines are to be forwarded.
- Mark X if other items are to be forwarded and explain in the Special Instructions block.
- Complete forwarding address.
- Special instructions.
- Signature of receptacle holder.
- Date signed: year, month, day.
- For advance receptacle assignment, list name of sponsor and duty phone in the Special Instructions block.
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
With the form finished, route it to the office named in not stated or in your organization's own instruction. Keep a copy first. People rarely regret having one and frequently regret not having one.
If the form points you to another document, you can find it by number alone. DD numbering runs across the whole Department, so you do not need to work out which service issued it — one number, one form, everywhere.
Be careful when a procedure pairs this form with a service form. Read the prefix, not just the digits. Service forms answer to a service proponent, while DD forms answer to not stated or an equivalent Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Grabbing the wrong prefix gets you a form that has nothing to do with your task.
Plan to repeat this step whenever the form comes up again. Revisions follow directive changes, changes in what data is collected, and updates to notice language. Since nobody notifies you, check not stated at download and you have covered it.
Before you go, note what is not covered here. You have the blank form and instructions for completing it; you do not have legal guidance, and no statement on this page determines what any office will do with your submission. Direct those questions to not stated, to the personnel office that serves you, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2258?
- D D Form 22 58, Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions, January 19 82.
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?